D-Link POE switch review – powering VOIP handsets

If you use more than a single VOIP phone then powering it using power over ethernet (POE) makes sense. Instead of plugging the phone into a regular power socket it can draw its power from the Ethernet cable. Much neater than having lots of power blocks.

To do this you need a special switch to provide the power. For the past year I’ve been using the D-Link DGS-1008P. This is an 8 port gigabit switch, with 4 of the ports able to provide power. The switch is relatively inexpensive for a POE switch and is unmanaged, so just plug in and play.

One thing to consider when using POE is the power requirement of the device being used. The DGS-1008P can provide up to 15.4 watts per port, with a total load of 52 watts across the 4 ports. This is unlikely to be an issue with a VOIP handset. My two day to day phones are the Yealink T22P and Aastra 53i, both of which draw up to around 2.5 watts.

So if you’re looking for a simple ‘desk’ switch to provide network/power to up to 4 handsets the DGS-1008P could be a good choice.